Month In The Life - Work In Progress

I went down to the bench last night and finished off these sterling silver and laser cut wood drop earrings. Two pairs are already spoken for, while the other three pairs are now in the shop. 

Next up, a custom signet ring. 

Notes From the Workshop

New tools - spoon stakes for the project I mentioned.

New postcards - I love new stationary.

A production line of Silver 'Beryl' Necklaces in preparation for Finders Keepers.


Working on a new collection of handmade drop earrings.


My dear Cohen, who keeps asking if he can make jewellery too. How could I say no?


Packaging up orders with a few of my favourite things.

I'm still here, keeping myself occupied in the workshop and waiting for baby. 39 weeks and 3 days today. I really am ready whenever baby is! It's a strange sort of limbo, this waiting business. 

Should baby keep us in anticipation, you can expect to see a few new pairs of earrings in the shop soon. Either way, the shop will remain open, with my sister taking over posting out orders in my absence. Only custom orders will be put on hold until I am ready to pick up my tools again after the birth.

Thanks for all your support and lovely comments here and on instagram lately. I hope to be sharing good news with you all soon. 

xx

Made By Hand - Link Up

As has been established, I am not a speedy knitter, despite my best wishes. Nor have I found much time to devote to my knitting lately. This little sweater is still on my needles. It seems when the jewellery work takes over, knitting takes a back seat. But thankfully, stitch by stitch a garment is built, no matter how long it takes. And unlike weeding or cleaning, time doesn't serve to undo ones efforts. 

Once this project is finished, I do believe I will try to learn how to lever knit (which is apparently the fastest way to knit). I would like to make another blanket, but the last one took me three months...

What have you been working on this past week?

My Creative Space...

The dried clay bowls now make delicate homes for small treasures. By night hammers and files are replaced by knitting needles. A new header and new pages for the blog. Finding creativity in the big and little moments.


Ravelry.


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More Creative Spaces here.

All that jazz...

The storm last night lowered the temperature and the lightening lit up the sky. After weeks of sleep without sheets or blankets, the storm brought the need to briefly pull up the sheet. How I miss my blankets.

The babe did not sleep well, perhaps because of the lightening. The many times I was up to him in the night I did not turn on a light, the flashes of lightening provided all the light I needed.

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Today has been one of those days that goes by slowly and somehow many things get done. The house is clean, the floor moped, the clothes washed, the dishes done...

Some more crochet stitches added to the throw, a chance to read more of 'Wishing on the Moon', a pleasant little nap, baking these delicious cookies and making this granola / muesli.

(Must try to stop eating these... must resist, I have eaten too many already...)

I hope this Friday finds you well and ready for a lovely weekend.

What have you been doing today?

A room full...

I remember when I surprised Dave with the painted spare room. He came home from work to find me giddy with excitement and all but dragging him from the front door to the first of the spare bedroom doors. I stood in front of the door, smiling, nervous, eager to show Dave my days work as he waited bewildered.

While running errands that day I'd picked up some paint and keeping it to myself when my husband called, I covered the room in coats of deep robins egg. Painted birds on branches perched on the walls and sat atop doors, transforming the space to me from spare room to nursery.

Success. Dave was duly impressed.

The room waited, painted and empty. Once I fell pregnant all sorts of nursery objects began to slowly move in. A rocking chair, a cot, a change table, baby clothes, nappy bin...

I remember when I was pregnant, I would sit in the room and day dream about the arrival of the baby. I would clean and rearrange. Things have been added, things have been grown out of and things have changed. My father gave me the apricot crate that sits on his set of drawers, home now to books and toys. Those drawers were ours as children. That print we sent home from Amsterdam. Those curtains made by my Mum. Parts of myself and my family for my baby. A room full of love and meaning.

Blogtoberfest.

Hexagon quilt...

Coffee and homemade chocolate, chocolate chip cookies...

More mail love.

Reproduction 1930's fabric from ebay seller myfavouritethings53.

I spent half the morning trying to make pics of the fabric into a collage, but a certain program would not comply and I won't be using it again... Last night...

Now to cut out the papers...

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PS. If any one has any repro 30's fabric or scraps they would like to trade, please email me!

Hexagon quilt...

Hexagon templates from here.

Free ones here.

Tutorial here.

Using this fabric.

I am hoping to make something like this.

Another.long.project...

Work In Progress...

Oh Lucy, what a bad influence you are on me...

If not for you, I would be finishing my giant granny square blanket,

and not starting another project...

I would have more time, as I wouldn't be reading all your previous posts on Attic24 and day dreaming about your tutorials... I would have more money because I hadn't spent it on cotton yarn... (But I wouldn't know how to ripple crochet...) Thank you Lucy!

PS. I am a Ravelry-er now. Little-bird.

Work In Progress...

I have been envisioning this in the future as a finished blanket on my sons first bed.

I have been imagining it keeping him warm at night, being dragged out to the couch to watch a movie, being kicked off the bed in the middle of the night and laying on the floor in the morning...

I can see him loving it as a small child, being embarrassed by it as a teenager and being proud of it as an adult...

My mind wanders while I crochet...

Work in Progress....

I have been inspired by Pip and Kirsty to pick up the crochet hook again and remember how to make a granny square. It was only last year that my lovely mother taught me... so I practiced again, and I think I have the hand of it.

Spotlight was also having a sale, sigh, so I brought some wool...

Every baby needs a giant granny square blanket, don't they?

I am now happily spending my nights on the couch working on this...

Oops...

I'm sorry blog. I know I have been side tracked... How could it have been so long since I last posted? Pre-baby I was blogging everyday and crafting up a storm. Lately is has been all breastfeeding, nappies, doctors, washing, cleaning and cooking - no crafting! Baby is now three months old... I'm back, I promise, just maybe not every day...

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Thank you Mixtape zine for your article by greenolive - "Making time for crafting"... it's just what I needed!

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I now have a new-for-me sewing table thanks, to my lovely parents, which was once my mothers and which I learnt to sew on

(which is in a different room from my fabric etc. which is a problem for another day...) and I have finally found some 'me' time to start playing with fabric again... ...baby related of course... although I don't have much in the way of masculine fabric... so bibs for girls it is. The cotton and towelling are overlocked together. My first bib with bias binding attempt... not the best... any suggestions or patterns without bias?

Projects...

Due date: today. Progress: none. Mood: impatient and excited. Projects to keep me amused while waiting: coming along nicely. Project two: nearly finished... only a few rows to go! Here it is, project two, vintage twist wool scarf which shall probably be worn by my beautiful twin sister while she swans around America, the UK and Paris for a month in a weeks time... Especially proud of first attempt at little squares effect at each end using knitting and purling stitches... Project three: Our first stockings... When it got too hot yesterday to continue knitting I decided to make hubby and me our first ever Christmas Stockings. So out came the felt, the fusible and some white cotton. I decided to try to iron the fusible to some cotton and then make snow flakes out of it like you would with paper, and it worked! Now hanging on Christmas tree...

Project four: Running out of things to do again, so another trip to Spotlight this morning, yes, on my due date! Thought I could have the baby next to the rolls of flanalette, as I started to get some very strange pains and couldn't walk, so just stood there awhile, pretending to contemplate the fabric! Pain passed, no baby, so I made it to the isles of wool... Christmas present in the making in this fat sage wool... and some fat black wool for once this is done...

Hmmm, how many more projects can I fit in before baby comes?

Project one...

Project one is finished

OR

How to make cushion covers...

Take one cool fat quarter recently found at Craft show... Add 1m of brown fabric, purchased yesterday at Spotlight... Add 6 cover-yourself buttons... A pinch of cotton thread... Take two much loved cushion covers ready for retirement... Create pattern in your head and use old cushion covers as a guide for size... Cut out brown fabric, realise you should wash it in case it runs... Once washed, dry and iron... Cut fat quarter into thirds and hem the longest edges... Iron fusible to the back of fat quarter fabric and position on largest squares of brown fabric... iron on... Sew over hems to attach permanently to cover front... get tricky and sew up one side of each of the trees on the fabric and along the occasional branch so that it looks cool... Hem brown fabric for backs and create a wide hem on one half of overlapping fabric... Lay pieces together and double stitch the whole way around the outside, then trim off corners... Turn the right way, insert cushion, admire handiwork.... Repeat for hubbies cushion cover...

Cover buttons with left over fat quarter fabric...

Sew onto wide hem, where it overlaps...

Pat self on back for having finally replaced cushion covers...

Sit on couch, using new cushions, and take up Project two from the coffee table...

Two new projects...

Doctors appoinment this morning and she said bubba will probably come next week... so off to Spotlight to get supplies for two new little projects to keep me occupied... What will they be...

So many cool coloured wools... it was hard but I eventually picked this "Vintage Twist", but I don't even know how it will look once it is knitted!

Will keep you posted... have a great week!